Lost Amid the Pyramids

Passover is about redeeming our core identity.

Ancient Egypt was the Big Apple of its time. In terms of technology, art, architecture, literature, wealth, and highly organized bureaucracy, Egypt was a consummate civilization. It had been so for many centuries when a small group of 70 Semitic herdsmen arrived there 3,528 years ago.

No wonder that the second and third generations of that Semitic family, the grandchildren of Jacob, were enthralled by Egyptian society. Its grandeur, its power, and its cosmopolitan air were enough to dazzle any immigrant child.

Imagine an Israelite youth peering at the imposing line of towering pyramids that started at the Nile Delta and extended for 1500 miles southward. The largest of them, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, stood 481 feet high; its base covered an area of 13 acres. The monumental structure contained 2.3 million blocks of limestone, each averaging 2½ tons. Gazing at this centuries-old pyramid, our immigrant youth would not have known -- and perhaps not have cared -- that its construction took 100,000 laborers 20 years of toil. Who would not want to be part of a society that produced such wonders?

Out of the 210 years that our ancestors lived in Egypt, they enjoyed freedom and prosperity for 130 years -- about as long as Jews have flourished in America.

It is a syndrome that we Jews have experienced in many civilizations throughout many epochs of exile: The host society is so culturally advanced, so powerful, so urbane, that we become infatuated with it. Although we associate the Israelite experience in Egypt with slavery and oppression, out of the 210 years that our ancestors lived in Egypt, they enjoyed freedom, prosperity, and acceptance for 130 years --about as long as Jews have flourished in America. The story reeks of familiarity: the Egyptian-born generations of Israelites gravitated to the majority culture, hobnobbed with its elite, and eventually worshipped its gods.

Yet, like the next three millennia of their descendents, these proto-Jews were caught in an identity crisis. As much as they longed to become part of the suave and successful society that surrounded them, they also felt a fealty to their progenitors, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, as well as to the unique worldview that they had espoused. Thus, the Talmud tells us, the Israelites in Egypt retained their distinctive Hebrew names, language, and dress. Their hearts longed to assimilate, but their souls clung to the outer vestiges of their ancestral identity.

HUMAN IDENTITY

For over a century, the Israelites in Egypt, as free and prosperous residents, were poised tenuously between two opposing worldviews. These worldviews sprung from two divergent concepts of human identity.

Ancient Egypt was a society where animals, humans, and gods shared a fluid identity, with no definite distinctions between them. Many Egyptian gods bore the heads of animals, while sphinxes had the bodies of lions and human heads. Animals were venerated; bulls, cats, and crocodiles lived luxuriously in certain temples, and when they died they were mummified. Egyptian peasants lived in the same hovels as their beasts. Pharaoh was a god in human form, simultaneously Horus, the falcon god, and the son of Re, the sun god.

How different from the worldview of the patriarch Abraham! Abraham had believed in a Divine soul that distinguished humans from animals. Abraham taught that God was a single, transcendent, non-corporeal Being Who had created human beings "in God's image," which meant that humans similarly had a transcendent, non-corporeal essence -- their Divine soul. Animals, while not to be mistreated, were essentially different than human beings because they lacked this higher order of soul. While bestiality was commonly practiced in the ancient Near East, the Torah of the Jews would categorically forbid it.

This is no minor distinction. Identity determines what we will expect of ourselves, to what we will devote our energies, and in what direction we will seek fulfillment.

Animals are ruled exclusively by instinct. An animal can be trained to alter its behavior through positive and negative reinforcement. A bear can learn to dance if you give it enough treats or whip it hard enough, but its attraction to the treats and aversion to the whip are merely an extension of its instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Because human beings are endowed with Divine souls, they can override instinct with moral choices.

In the Jewish worldview, human beings, because they are endowed with Divine souls, can override instinct with moral choices. In fact, this is the definitive characteristic of human beings: They can choose between right and wrong -- even when the right alternative is painful and the wrong alternative beckons with pleasure.

People who define themselves as animals relinquish the possibility of transcendence and its accompanying joys: selfless love, altruistic giving, moral heroism, and spiritual growth.

Ancient Egypt, in fact, for all its cultic religiosity, had no concept of a transcendent soul separate from the body. Their elaborate tombs were well-equipped with food and clothing for the use of the deceased in the after-life. Some tombs of Second Dynasty noblemen were even equipped with bathrooms. The lengthy, secret process of mummification was necessary because, devoid of a transcendent soul, if the body decayed, it would be as if the person had never existed. Just like an animal.

The Jewish concept of human beings as essentially different from animals also meant that human sexuality was holy and exclusively in the context of marriage. Contrast this to ancient Egyptian promiscuity, where incest was accepted, fertility cults abounded, and temple prostitutes were a fixture of society. Erotic pictures adorn Egyptian tombs, a practice intended to revive the male tomb occupant in his next life. The special disdain the Sages would later reserve for Egyptian society was no doubt the result of this licentiousness.

THE GREAT TURNING POINT

While the God of Abraham had -- and demanded -- a definite standard of right and wrong, Egyptian society was essentially amoral. It had no codified or written laws at all. Pharaoh's arbitrary judgments were the law of the land. Egyptian courts were merely the vicarious arm of Pharaoh's whims.

Morality was a novel concept introduced into antiquity by the Jews. While, unlike Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia produced many legal codes, these were utilitarian rather than ethical. Their aim was to protect property rights and preserve the efficacious functioning of society. According to such codes, murder was forbidden because a murderous society degenerates into chaos. According to the Torah, murder is forbidden because human beings are created in the image of God and therefore human life has inherent value.

"The discovery of monotheism," writes historian Paul Johnson, "and not just of monotheism but of a sole, omnipotent God actuated by ethical principles and seeking methodically to impose them on human beings, is one of the great turning-points in history, perhaps the greatest of all." [A History of the Jews, p. 30]

CHAMPIONS OF CIVIC DUTY

The Israelite wavering between their two warring identities ended dramatically 130 years into their Egyptian experience. The reigning Pharaoh decided that the Israelites were becoming too numerous and posed the danger of a fifth column during wartime and gradually impounded them into slavery.

The Midrash relates that at first, Pharaoh played on their identity as loyal Egyptians by summoning them as volunteers in a national construction enterprise. All the Israelites except the tribe of Levi rallied enthusiastically to their civic duty. Gradually the volunteerism turned into conscription, and finally slavery.

The slavery exposed the dark side of Egyptian civilization. The grand monuments that the Israelites themselves had admired were built by human exploitation and torture. Pharaoh, worried by his astrologers' predictions of an Israelite redeemer, had male babies murdered and thrown into the waiting jaws of Nile crocodiles. Unconstrained by any ethical imperative, the taskmasters were cruel and sadistic.

Yet the Israelite infatuation for their adopted society was so tenacious that even at the height of the process of redemption, during the ninth of the Ten Plagues, some 80% of the Israelites declined to leave Egypt. Being a slave in the world's greatest civilization was to them preferable to the uncertain journey back to their archaic ancestral homeland. Even in the desert after their liberation, many of the former slaves pined for the amenities of Egypt. As the quip goes, God could take the Jews out of Egypt, but He couldn't take Egypt out of the Jews.

THE EXILE OF IDENTITY

Jewish history is a recurring process of exile and redemption. Exile is not only expulsion from our land; it is also an exile from our identity as Jews. When two identities conflict, only one will ultimately prevail.

Every Jew reading this essay is the descendant of Jews who repeatedly chose to identify as Jews.

Two millennia ago, there were as many Jews in the world as Chinese. Today, the Chinese number one billion and Jews number less than 14 million. This is due not only to repeated persecution and massacre, but also to the opting out of Jews in favor of the majority culture. Every Jew reading this essay is the descendant of Jews who repeatedly chose to identify as Jews rather than as Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Christians, Muslims, or secularists.

One of the mitzvot of the Torah incumbent upon every Jew is to remember daily "the going out from Egypt." On the simplest level this means remembering the historic event of the Exodus, the dramatic evidence that God intervenes in history for our collective and personal redemption. On a metaphorical level, however, "the going out from Egypt" refers to our emerging from our "Egyptian" self-definition as an instinct-driven animal to our Jewish self-definition as a Divine soul capable of making moral choices and achieving transcendence.

The brilliant light of redemption, which first flashed into the world at the Exodus, is available every year at Passover time. It is a gift from Above. All we have to do is want it. All we have to do is clarify who we really are.

Bibliography: A History of the Jews by P. Johnson; Wanderings by C. Potok; Tour Egypt website.

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About the Author

Sara Yoheved Rigler is the author of God Winked: Tales and Lessons from my Spiritual Adventures, as well as the bestsellers: Holy Woman, Lights from Jerusalem, and Battle Plans: How to Fight the Yetzer Hara(with Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller). She is a popular international lecturer on subjects of Jewish spirituality. She has given lectures and workshops in Israel, England, Switzerland, South Africa, Mexico, Chile, Canada, and over thirty American cities. A graduate of Brandeis University, after fifteen years of practicing and teaching meditation and Eastern philosophy, she discovered "the world's most hidden religion: Torah Judaism." Since 1985, she has been living as a Torah-observant Jew in the Old City of Jerusalem with her husband and two children. She presents a highly-acclaimed Marriage Workshop for women [seewww.kesherwife.com] as well as a Gratitude Workshop. To invite her to your community, please write to info@sararigler.com.

Visitor Comments: 20

(20)
Anonymous,
April 4, 2011 1:50 PM

From metzar to revach

An idea on going out from one's personal Mitzrayim:
The word mitzrayim is related to metzar, which means narrow or constricted.
From mitzrayim the Jewish people were going to the land of Israel, which is called a land of revach, meaning width and expansiveness. For example, in bentching Eretz Yisrael is described as "eretz chemdah tovah *u'rechava*", a wide expansive land.
The idea of going from Mitzrayim to Eretz Yisrael is going from metzar, spritual narrows and constriction, to revach, spiritual width and expansiveness. And in particular, going out from our own personal "mitzrayims" that are holding us back from who we have the potential to be.
As it says in the pasuk in Tehillim, 118:5, said in Hallel: "Min *ha'Metzar* karasi kah, annani *va'merchav* kah" - "From the straits I called to Hashem, Hashem answered me with expansiveness."

(19)
ruthhousman@mac.com,
April 3, 2011 4:52 PM

The Exodus

The Exodus from Egypt has its parallels around the world. The Black spiritual, Let My People Go, is such an example It is a psalm about slavery, about oppression, about the history of The American Blacks.
I say it is a "universal story", a metaphor for alll oppression.
Beyond this, there is this total non understanding of animals that continues on Aish. I know elephants, and they bury their dead and adopt their orphans. I see pictures of dolphins saving drowning people, and animals caring for other species. So where is this coming from? This non comprehension of the animal world? I have animals and I can tell you about LOVE.
As to fish, they actually resemble women in their finery with thier pouting red lips and colors. And no, this is not my need to make them "human". And there is ISH ther word for man, the Hebrew, in Fish our English word. And a book by Shubin, a biologist, about "your inner fish". Doi not keep saying only we are made in the image of the, Divine.
I think it is important to look at what I am saying, and others, about "bestial" and how we perceive, because it does deeply affect our actions with respect to ecology and the preservation of the planet.
As to EXODUS, it is a story that involved other people, and they too, must have been part of G_d's story. How hard is it to see a story that involved not just us, but was moved by the Divine, in all aspects, to create The Miracle.
This is a lovely piece of writing but I am moved to say these things, because I know about the desert, and I know, how it does bloom, when sufficiently watered, and also how words, do sometimes not give the whole picture.

(18)
linda rose,
January 30, 2011 7:51 AM

I love the way you put that together

animal instinct vs human soul and choice.
Divine God is amazing that we were given choice and we were all born.
We some time forget that we were children.
Thank you for your message.

(17)
Joey,
January 30, 2011 7:50 AM

Thank you

This was an excellent article. Thanks and God bless. :-)

(16)
Sarag,
January 30, 2011 7:50 AM

Greatly appreciated

I am very appreciative of this article, it reminds us to remember who we areâ€¦we should never forget we are Jews first.

(15)
esther,
January 30, 2011 7:50 AM

excellent

This short article has given me information I had forgotten or didn't know. I am looking forward to reading your book.
Chag Sameach!

(14)
Anonymous,
January 30, 2011 7:49 AM

Short but Realistic Insight every Jew should live with..

It really is a Jew masterpiece.

(13)
Alex Huzau,
January 30, 2011 7:49 AM

About the pyramids..

Very nice article, but - like the actually accepted view about the origin of the pyramids - wrong, or misunderstood.
1) There is still any hystorical or archeological evidence, that pharaoh Khufu, or someone else, has built the Great Pyramid.
2)Make a simple arithmetical calculation: divide the average number of stone blocks contained by the Great Pyramid to the days of 60(not 20!)years.
2,500,000 : 21,900 = 114,15 blocks of stone to be cut, transported and lifted on their places each day.
It makes about 5 blocks/hour, 24 hours/day, 7 days a week, 60 years long!
And all this on eve of the bronze age.
Do you really think that this phantastic performance was possible so many thousands of years ago?
Not even today with modern tools and technology..!
Conclusion: nobody knows when, how, and why the pyramids were built.
With regards,
Alex Huzau

(12)
miriam,
January 30, 2011 7:48 AM

Beautiful article

Thank you - this really put a lot of ideas together!

(11)
Anonymous,
April 16, 2007 1:57 AM

Dear Sara,

Re your article about every Jew reading this being the descendent of someone who chose to remain Jewish - sadly it is not the case.

I, and thousands like me, am the descendent of spanish Jews who converted - both in Spain, Portugal and South America. As a result of this no one is welcoming us with open arms.

In my case my mum's grandmother was Jewish - but I cannot prove it or at least not yet.

Many Jews have been lost to our people, but Hashem is bringing us back. All things return to their rightful place.

(10)
Yosef-Meir,
April 11, 2007 4:24 PM

What about us Jews by Choice?

That's a fine article but you exclude those of us who are Jews by choice when you say "every Jew reading this essay is the descendant of Jews who repeatedly chose to identify as Jews". While that is true in a spiritual sense, practically many of us did not come from Jewish parents -- we were drawn to Judaism based on observance and study of its history and principles.

(9)
Harry Morris,
April 21, 2006 12:00 AM

Excellent

Most interesting article By Sarah Rigler

(8)
Elizabethann Kloskin,
April 19, 2006 12:00 AM

This is for Liz

Moses Mendelson was one of the leading lights of the German Reform Movement. "Berlin is our Jerusalem and Germany is our Zion." None of his grandchildren were Jewish.

(7)
Irwin Dunietz,
April 17, 2006 12:00 AM

Converts overlooked

While I enjoy Sara Yoheved Rigler's essays, I was disappointed that in this one she did not consider Jews by choice who might read them when she asserts "Every Jew reading this essay is the descendant of Jews who repeatedly chose to identify as Jews rather than as Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Christians, Muslims, or secularists." This is especially troubling given the commandment not to discomfit the convert.

(6)
Anonymous,
April 14, 2006 12:00 AM

Identity crisis..

Righy on ... Jews face an identity crisis daily.. what to eat, how to act, where to live, when to say no, whom to marry,shidduch, dowry, or just gung ho... thank good ness for our identity crises, because they are our daily testing grounds... Ha vdalah...
Good article, Sarah...

(5)
sonia,
April 14, 2006 12:00 AM

Answers pertinent to the time in which we now live

Sarah Rigler's remarkable article draws a parallel between our people's behaviors upon entering ancient Egypt to that in our own day. Its as though we have not changed! Surely not as much as perhaps some of us think! Pesach and its lessons are eternal! Pesach connects us to our past and shows us the key not only to who we are as a people, but what it takes to preservere in the face of todays challenges. We need ongoing reminders of what our connexions are to one another, as a nation in terms of our heritage. Our source is HaShem, his Torah and Israel!

None among us has the right to abrogate this basis for our peoplehood! Yet, so many many among us do! And the consequence are borne by all Jews!

We are confronting an imperative to understand our past in order to preserve ourselves as ever before! We speak so much of consciousness and awareness when it comes to contemporary issues usually gravitating to that of other peoples, societies, and cultures even religions. Indeed, pride ourselves as such! Why is it there are those among us for whom the obligations incumbent as Jews are given less priority!

As we learn the history of our people, our evolution, and most importantly the basis of our connexions we have the tools to counter such challenges.

Our learning of our nation as Jews and personal liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt holds lessons surely as pertinent in this our day. In Pesach we reaffirm our path and connection for which I have much gratitude!

I would like to see my fellow Jews take to heart and to mind the opportunities and obligation that makes Pesach the extraordinary experience and helping tool it is!

(4)
Bertram Rothschild,
April 12, 2006 12:00 AM

Did we invent morality? Probably not.

It is extraordinary to imagine that human beings did not struggle with moral issues. Aside from archeological evidence, in which it is clear that morality, ie rules of conduct was alsready codified, how could humans work together, cooperate with each other, have families, etc., without moral codes.

I suspect that Judaisms great addition was to ascribe the rules to a creator. Akenahton worshipped one god but I don't think he derived morality from the sun disc. Morality is part of the human condition;the only issue is how it came about.

(3)
Malki H,
April 10, 2006 12:00 AM

Extremely interesting and enlightening

Thank you for this very interesting and inspiring article. I have been trying to grasp what Passover means to me other than the story we have been telling over since we are children and other than small little ideas on the hagada. Thank you

(2)
Jose Pineda,
April 10, 2006 12:00 AM

Check your facts on the Chinese

Good article, though I disagree with the comparison with the "Chinese".

First of all, there is no such thing as a "Chinese people": China is a multi-ethnic country! Ms Sarah may refer to the "Han" (Tang) people, who claim to be descendants of the "Yellow Emperor".

On the other hand, it isn't fair to compare Han Chinese to the Jewish people: China has been most of the time, ever since the Qin (Ch'in) dynasty, a unified nation under one government. Jews living in Israel have most of the times been a minority of world Jewry, the rest have always lived in other peoples' lands, depending on someone else's government.

Second, China has *always* been overpopulated for the standards of the time. Were there 50 million jews during the Romans period? I thought they were aprox. 20 million at most! This population pressure has most of the time pushed the Han (and the other peoples who have interacted, assimilated or being conquered by/with them) towards new scientific and medical discoveries, new industrial and agricultural processes, etc. - each more efficient than the last. On other times though, it has served as detonator for economic stagnation and helped spread famine.